Spotlight fades on families of fallen soldiers, but pain remains

Sunday

Jul 8, 2007 at 12:01 AM

Steven Bridges might have been a history teacher, Brandon Dewey a police officer. Jesse Martinez most likely would have settled down in Tracy to help care for his nieces and nephews, his pride and joy, while Adam Kinser would take a steady job and raise his first child in his hometown of Rio Vista.

Sara Cardine

Steven Bridges might have been a history teacher, Brandon Dewey a police officer. Jesse Martinez most likely would have settled down in Tracy to help care for his nieces and nephews, his pride and joy, while Adam Kinser would take a steady job and raise his first child in his hometown of Rio Vista.

Instead, their dreams and devotions died with them thousands of miles away from the places they called home. They are just a few of nearly two dozen servicemen and women from San Joaquin County who have lost their lives in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They all chose to serve and were given heroes' farewells in accordance with military custom. Their families were placed in the spotlight as the media clamored to piece together the stories of their lives.

The attention has faded, but the deep sense of loss remains. And in times like these, local friends and families left behind are holding fast to their faiths to see them through while honoring the lives of their loved ones.

"(God) didn't make Steven die, but he did let it happen, and I can't question that," said Loretta Bridges, who lost her son Dec. 8, 2003, when his Stryker vehicle overturned 25 days into his deployment. At 33, he had spent more than 15 years in the Army and had served in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Loretta Bridges and her husband, Sheldon, take comfort in the fact that the Army made Steven Bridges the man he was and are grateful for the time they had with him. Though tears still well up when Loretta recalls the night she learned of his death, she is confident she will see him again.

"I know where my son's at," she said, smiling.

For Tracy mom Julie Conover, the road to acceptance has been bumpy. Her son, Marine Lance Cpl. Brandon Dewey, 20, was killed in a suicide bomb explosion Jan. 20, 2006. Since then, she and husband Scott have tried to honor his memory while putting back the pieces of their own lives.

A member of Military Moms of Tracy, Julia Conover stopped attending meetings after her son's death. It was painful for her and the other mothers.

"It's hard for me to hear them pray their kids will come back safe, because mine didn't," she said, choking on the last words.

"Some girl's missing out on him. He would have had kids," added Scott Conover, Dewey's stepfather. "It's a tough thing, and I don't really know that it gets better."

That's a sentiment Rio Vista parents Paul and Terri Kinser know all too well. Their lives changed forever the night they learned their son, Army Spec. Adam Kinser, of the 304th PSYOPS Company from Sacramento under the Army's Special Operations Command, died in a weapons depot explosion near Kabul, Afghanistan, on Jan. 29, 2004.

He was the oldest of five children and was expecting his first son when he died. His wife, Tiffany, named the baby Adam and has since remarried. She still drives her son from Vacaville to Rio Vista once a week for visits with his grandparents.

"You have to go through a process of reinventing your life," Paul Kinser said of losing a child. "It's the most horrible thing you can imagine, the worst possible nightmares all rolled up in one."

Jan Martinez of Tracy tries to look on the bright side while grieving her son, Army Pfc. Jesse Jack Martinez, who died in an accident near Mosul, Iraq, on July 14, 2004. Since then, she said, she's been blessed by the support of friends, family members and strangers who have comforted her. She and Loretta Bridges keep in touch, attending monthly meetings of Compassionate Friends, a support group for anyone who's lost a child. Their aim is to help others navigate through their grief.

Playgrounds, post offices and street names, retired athletic jerseys and war memorials - these are the tangible reminders of what has been lost locally to the war effort. What rebuilds those lives piece by piece, even years after their departures, are the memories of the people who loved them best.

Today, Adam Kinser's 3-year-old son, affectionately called Baby Adam, finds comfort in the silkiness of Old Navy clothing tags. It reminds Terri Kinser of how his father always carried ribbons instead of blankets when he was a toddler. Steven Bridges' 8-year-old daughter, Sarrah, still keeps the fatigues she wore trick-or-treating with her dad on Halloween 2003 and again at his funeral just months later, though she has no hope of ever fitting into them again.

The Conovers remember hearing the booming music from Dewey's car before they saw him, cap backwards, pulling up the drive. They laugh at his ability to recite any line from the three "Austin Powers" movies. Jan Martinez thinks back to when Jesse was born, how the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck three times.

"He fought to come into this world, and he fought going out," she'll tell you.

But because the public at large will never really know these details, many family members feel it is up to them to keep the memories of their sons and daughters alive.

Stockton resident Becky Mizener, whose son Jesse Mizener was killed Jan. 7, 2004, in Baghdad, founded Packed With Pride, an organization that still sends care packages to troops overseas. Tracy mom Nadia McCaffrey has proposed plans for a local veterans care center and retreat she hopes to build to honor her son, Army Spec. Patrick Ryan McCaffrey, who died June 22, 2004, in an ambush north of Baghdad.

That's why the Kinsers continue to talk to the media, despite their ever-growing weariness of political leanings and their reluctance to let their son die again and again in the retelling. Every newspaper article is another clipping in the scrapbook Terri Kinser keeps for her grandson.

"One day, Baby Adam's going to want to know the man his dad was," she said.

And when things get too much to bear, the couple try to remember the spirit of their son, who proudly sported a tattoo of praying hands and his favorite Bible verse: